


(I Love You) I Want Us All to Eat Well

by naberiie



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Character Study, Colors, Cooking, Fluff, Food, Force-Sensitive Finn (Star Wars), Gen, No Plot/Plotless, Other, but can be read any way, five things, relationships are mostly background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:40:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21839224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naberiie/pseuds/naberiie
Summary: Finn's journey took him from the barren, bleak corridors of the First Order to the colorful, welcoming warmth of the Resistance community; from dense nutrition bricks to home-cooked meals among friends.A (mostly) fluffy study of his journey using colors and foods.
Relationships: Finn & CT-6116 | Kix, Finn/Rey (Star Wars), Poe Dameron/Finn
Comments: 8
Kudos: 82





	(I Love You) I Want Us All to Eat Well

** I. GRAYS. **

The first thing FN-2187 remembered tasting were the nutrition bricks.

Cold bricks the color of durasteel, with about the same flavor. Two for every meal, more for the heavy gunners. It was all very scientific. Exactly what each class needed, nothing more, nothing excess. It was cheaper this way, easier to serve, easier to prepare, easier to store food items in nutrient-dense, flavorless bars for the troops of the First Order. Each bite held together like wet sand for just a moment on the tongue before dissolving into a dusty cloud of faint metallic taste, like the distant memory of biting one’s tongue.

Ration bars were little better. The texture was different, a bit like cold, dense, overworked leather. The leathery strips were packed with essential nutrients - proteins, fats, and carbs necessary for long campaigns if supplies started to dwindle. Even now FN-2187 couldn’t quite tell if the ration bars had _ any _ taste whatsoever. You had to angle your bite, rip off the strips with your molars. Otherwise the rations would break your teeth. They didn’t taste like anything, but they filled your stomach and gave you the energy to follow commands. And that was all that mattered. Sterile and clinical and stripped to the absolute essential. 

There were long benches attached to long tables in the mess, but the troops rarely lingered there. Swallow it down, force it down, get back to training or work or duties or try to catch a bit of sleep before your next shift. There was a cold storage unit where the kitchen would have been - _ should _ have been - and KP shifts were as simple and bland as the bars they served. 

He could still picture the mess, could still feel the mealy texture of the nutrition bricks and the tough leather of the ration bars on his teeth and tongue, could still hear the sanitized tear of the plastic vacuum seal that counted as preparation and serving. He couldn’t remember if they had a smell. Probably just the packaging they came in.

The dense dry powder and tough tasteless sticks had fed him, but they had not nourished him.

As blank and lifeless as his armor.

** II. SANDS AND STEEL BLUES. **

Water cascaded over his head like a blessing, the rivulets sneaking underneath his blacks beginning to wash away the last traces of the First Order still left on his skin. He had left his armor in the desert, to be buried among so many lost and forgotten and discarded things in the ancient sands. The water glided off of Poe’s jacket and beneath his desperation for water his heart thudded with pain. The desert had swallowed the TIE and Poe, but FN-2187 - no, Finn, _ Finn _\- would not forget him. Would never forget him.

Finn cupped his hands together and drank greedily from his palms, and again, and again, drenching his face but drinking until he felt reborn. Every handful of the water - dirty though it might be, it still sparkled like jewels under the intense sun - tasted like sharp dawn slicing through the fog of a cold night.

The pale blue of the sky danced on the water, clear even through the fine layer of sand resting on its surface.

Never mind the grit of the desert in his teeth. He was being made anew. Cleansed of the First Order, he took his first nourishment as _ Finn. _

Finn mourned for Poe, and wished he was here next to him.

Droplets hung like diamonds on his skin.

** III. EMERALDS AND HERBS. **

The table was already piled high with food when Maz Kanata led them through her crowded cantina. Patrons either stared at or shied away from Han, but they all parted before the tiny Kanata and her group with ease. Their stares and not-so-subtle whispers rankled across his back. Every nerve ending in his body was tense, every cell braced for something to go wrong, for someone to realize who they were and what was chasing them. And then how much time would they have to get out?

They had to be lucky every time. The First Order only had to be lucky _ once. _How long could they keep up this pace before their luck finally ran out?

Finn rubbed his temple as he slid into the smooth wooden chair. It was all too loud, too crowded, too colorful. There was no privacy here, and too many ears listening, and yet none of his companions seemed to care.

There was an exclamation from the other side of the table, and Finn glanced over to see Rey’s eyes widen at the sight of the towering tray at the center of the table. The old copper plates were piled high with fresh fruits, vegetables, and pastries from seemingly a hundred different worlds. She stared at it like a predator sizing up its prey - and when Kanata gestured welcomingly at the pile, Rey’s hands shot out at once.

Finn’s stomach growled, and he realized that he had not eaten since before he’d made the beyond-reckless, incredibly brave decision to rescue Poe and leave the First Order.

He’d never seen fruits and vegetables like this before. Crisp reds and dark, leafy greens, sweet oranges and bright cheerful yellows and a hundred other colors shone in the dusty windows and hanging lights of the cantina. The produce wasn’t uniform and perfect, it was imperfect and unique and therefore perfect in its own right. Thumbprints on the edges of the pastries spoke of a hidden pair of hands in the kitchen, not just a machine. Rey scarfed down her food, piling more and more onto her own plate, as if she was afraid someone would snatch it all away before she could eat her fill. Han wasn’t interested in the food, and neither was Kanata.

He supposed that, if this is what your food looked like every day, if the variety of a carefully-tended garden’s bounty was something you were used to, it would be easy to overlook how beautiful it looked.

For a moment, he just stared at the colorful feast. The danger of the First Order still prickled uneasily at his scalp, but he was a living being, and he was hungry, and he was - for now - among friends.

He picked up a small pastry and carefully placed it down on the chipped plate in front of him. Golden and warm when the food he’d been used to - could he really call it food? - had been flat and gray and cold, flaky where the bricks were powdery. Every part of the small creation before him had been grown, harvested, prepared, cut, shaped, baked, tended by hands working with the express intention not just sate hunger, but to nourish strangers and friends alike. Whoever walked through the doors of Maz Kanata’s cantina would be welcomed, and they would all be served. They would all be fed.

This little buttery pastry, golden and fragrant with bright citrusy herbs and sweet roasted fruits and rich tangy filling, was not optimized for nutritional value. Without any need for words, it was a tiny, rich welcoming. Even the rounded, worn table at which they sat invited the warmth of a real community.

After the cold corridors of the First Order, and the harsh sands of Jakku, Finn found a first refuge among Takodana’s lush emerald forests.

He welcomed it with gusto.

** IV. BACTA [COLORLESS]. **

Sometimes, he dreamed.

He dreamt of a frozen forest, red and blue crashing together with a humming electric charge that had not reverberated through the galaxy for years. Clashing lights in the distance, throwing sharp colors off of the falling snow in the darkening woods. Everything tasted like ice and copper, and soon he realized he was dreaming.

Which was strange, because bacta usually suppressed that brain activity.

He only realized for certain when he watched Rey speak softly to him - he couldn’t hear her words, only the garbled speech of dreams. She had looked sad, and Finn had tried to reach for her hand.

For a moment, he thought she had felt it. She had blinked in confusion, then shaken herself and pressed her hand against the glass of the tank. 

That was when Finn had realized she was looking at his comatose body, floating silently in a tank of colorless bacta, while some part of him - some part of his mind, or spirit, or something - was standing right next to her. His body slept, but his mind was active. He was a ghost, haunting his own bedside.

The bacta tank took care of all of his physical needs, and those were monitored by the medics. A woman with salt-and-pepper hair would frequently stop by, and so would a man with a neatly trimmed beard and eyes that seemed far too old for his youthful face. 

Poe and General Organa stopped by, too, and each time they stepped into the medbay and walked up to the tank where he - his physical body - floated, Finn - the ghost, the presence - couldn’t help but feel oddly… happy. Satisfied. People cared about him, people wanted him to get better. Poe would talk to the tank, quietly, still in the garbled language, and Finn would sit next to him. He couldn’t quite make out the words, but Poe’s presence was more than enough to warm him.

He tried walking out of the medbay a few times. The farther away he got from the bacta tank the stronger the taste of ice became against his teeth, the more he could taste the warm copper of his own blood in his mouth. So he did not stray too far. More than anything, he wanted to heal and step back into his own body, so that he could hold the people he cared about. He wanted to hold Rey, and Poe, and maybe even Chewbacca. 

The strange non-spatial world in which he inhabited felt like a vast hall that had once been full of voices and murmured songs. He could sense their echoes in his head. The half-world he inhabited, watching medics and friends - family - make their rounds to his bedside felt at once vast and terribly lonely, like itself carried a great wound still seeking to be healed.

Finn wondered if there were many other ghosts in this place, or if it was now well and truly abandoned. There were flickers, gentle and far away. When General Organa visited him, those far-away flames grew stronger. 

When he realized that he wasn’t dreaming, when he realized that he was occupying the worlds-between of the Force, a space between time, the ice and copper and pain melted away. He opened his eyes, and the bacta tank reacted immediately.

He broke the surface of the gel, and the medic was there in an instant.

He tasted only the sterile non-taste of bacta. He was healed, and his friends were waiting for him.

** V. CLEMENTINES AND SAFFRON AND WINE. **

Rey filled his cup with more of the rich dark wine, and winked at him as she set the bottle down on the table. All around them, the Resistance fighters and programmers and strategic tacticians and soldiers cheered, and danced, and drank, and sang, and ate their fill in each other’s company, as reports of the collapse of the First Order - the proper, true, and utterly complete collapse - continued to joyously fly in.

The war had been long, but they had won.

They had won.

And so they celebrated.

Finn had already lost count of the toasts, but he cheered along with every single one of them.

People lingered here, in this mess. People sat on the long benches at the long tables, empty plates and bowls and cups in front of them as they laughed and conversed for hours after the final dishes had been served. Bowls piled high with fresh fruit from the compound’s greenhouse - tended religiously by the clone medic Kix and Finn himself - had been brought out, too. As Finn glanced around at the celebration, he couldn’t help but think that the mere act of tending to the food that he now shared with his fellows in the fight, his friends, had been a stubborn act of hope against the looming, seemingly-permanent shadow that the First Order had cast over the entire galaxy. Some of the seats at their table were empty. They had lost people, but they had kept on fighting. They had never lost hope. Resistance took many forms. No matter its shape, it was that persistent, stubborn refusal to give up hope that they would one day enjoy the fruits of their labors in warmth and community and victory. 

And that day was here.

Finn picked up a blackberry, the rich dark red juice staining his fingertips. He grinned at Rey, who matched his joy with a brilliant, beaming smile. She leaned over and kissed his cheek, and she smelled of sunlight. Boisterous laughter echoed around the base as the galaxy celebrated with them. It almost didn’t feel real. The bubbling joy in his chest almost hurt, and he couldn’t stop smiling, and dancing, and laughing.

Poe finished peeling one of the fresh clementines. The smell of the summer sun rising above the heavy mulled wine and richly layered saffron rice as he set aside the long strip of the peel. He smiled at Finn as he gently coaxed the fruit into two halves, and then again. He handed one part to Finn, another to Rey, the last to Rose. Finn smiled and kissed Poe's fingertips, tasting the sweet citrus still lingering there.

There would be work to be done, in the morning. After all, they had a galaxy to rebuild.

But as Finn ate the clementine that he had help nurture, that Poe had peeled for him, that they shared with each other, as he poured more wine for Rose, as Rey served Poe the last few bites of the crunchy saffron rice - as they served and served each other - nothing in the galaxy seemed impossible.

His own life had gone from gray and lifeless to a never-ending explosion of warmth and color and community. Someone started to sing, loud and a bit off-key, but soon the entire mess - the entire base, the entire _ galaxy - _was singing along at the top of their lungs. Finn raised his glass and drank deep and marveled at the sweet, rich taste of this long-coming victory.

He had found his own little family, and it was good.

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking about TFA the other week, and realized that a. people rarely ate in this movie (it was mostly Rey), and b. Finn's journey can be pretty nicely mapped with the use of color. Of course he starts out with the grays and whites and blacks of the First Order, and from there goes on to Jakku's dusty blues and sands. After that it's the green of Takodana! I've been thinking about color theory in general a lot lately, and always enjoying writing about food, meals, cooking, and how it all ties into community and definitions of family. 
> 
> Also, I just got a bunch of cookbooks for my birthday and wanted to write something fluffy and nice along those lines to celebrate :)
> 
> The pastry he enjoys on Takodana is based off a caramelized onion, fresh apple, and (space?) goat cheese tart that I myself have been daydreaming about. I like savory foods!
> 
> Finn is absolutely 100% Force sensitive. I will die on this hill.
> 
> The reference to Kix and the Resistance base greenhouse gardens is based off of another Finn-centric fic I wrote, called _Hands in the Dirt, Head in the Sun._
> 
> The saffron rice dish that the four enjoy together in the final section is based off of Persian rice and the classic _tahdig_.
> 
> The peeling and sharing of the clementine is a direct reference to Wendy Cope's _The Orange_.
> 
> Final note: I have only seen TLJ once, and am not planning on seeing TROS. As always, I do not take either into consideration for my fics. I always hope I do Finn the justice that he deserves.
> 
> Thanks for reading this far - go eat something if you haven't already!


End file.
